Icicles

(Don’t forget to double click on the photos to enlarge them for better viewing!)

I may complain a lot about the snow and the problems it creates for us here in the valley, but I have to admit it is beautiful when it’s fresh and clean. This most recent storm system was truly a multidimensional one. We woke up to the snow falling on Thursday, and yes it was quite beautiful and serene for the first couple days.

By late Friday there was a good 5 – 8 inches of snow around my place. Then the temperatures dropped slightly, and it started to melt, causing icy moisture to accumulate on everything by late Friday night. More freezing rain came, further adding to the accumulation of ice layers. Then freezing temperatures during the night solidified the icicles into little stalactites as hard as rock! Leaves and limbs and baby buds became encapsulated by thick coatings of ice so hard they couldn’t even be broken by hand. These icy formations were being created on anything and everything that had water dripping from it. It was disturbing but fascinating!

I’m worried about what effect this has had on the new buds that were just beginning to protrude on the branches of my Lilac and Daphne. Saturday morning, tree limbs and branches started to split off. Younger trees bent over under the strain. I was out in the back yard watching many large limbs and branches falling from the trees in my neighbors’ yards. One could hear the crackling sounds of falling limbs and branches throughout the neighbourhood. Sirens were heard in the distance off and on all day.

As the winds kicked up, more limbs, branches and debris dropped everywhere creating havoc and dropping power for many around the county. Fortunately, only one large limb fell on my house, and it didn’t cause any damage. Other limbs from the black locust and elm tree in my neighbor’s yard fell on my fence and the little yellow shed in the back, but it didn’t damage anything either. It was quite a showy mess by Sunday, but fortunately everything started to melt by then and the worst of it was over by Sunday evening, and the kids were back in school the next day. Amazing!

Also included with these photos is a wonderful poem from a friend of mine
along with another poem by Emily Dickenson:

Melting Snow and Ice

As the snow and ice melt,
the land, trees, animals, birds and humans
breathe a sigh of relief.
It is almost audible, as if we finally can breathe again.
The birds have gathered in great numbers here and I wondered why,
until I bent down to take a photo of an ice covered bush,
and inside the ice were lots of little red berries.
Then I looked in the garden, beneath the awning,
and saw new green shoots coming up.
Spring is on its way.

~Alicia

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.